I’m working on a project involving black attitudes about people with HIV/AIDS, and was doing some more citation digging. Came across this nugget that I don’t think I’ve seen before–or at least not recently, it is taken from my personal files:
A study was conducted to determine whether the level of black socioeconomic status is related to the level of black residential segregation in the city and suburbs of Detroit. Data were drawn from the U.S. Bureau of Census, 1990 Summary Tape Files 4-A, and the indexes of dissimilarity D and isolation P were used to measure segregation and isolation between blacks and whites at the same level of occupation, income, or education. Findings reveal that residential segregation between blacks and whites remained high in both city and the suburbs in spite of comparable socioeconomic status. It is noted that at every socioeconomic level, blacks in the suburbs were more isolated than blacks in the city.
This piece was written by Joe T. Darden and Sameh M. Kamel and is entitled Black Residential Segregation in the City and Suburbs of Detroit: Does Socio-economic Status Matter? Now there are some serious questions about generalizability, because the Detroit area is one of the most segregated areas of the country. But particularly given my previous post about the New Poor, it’d be interesting to see how blacks in the suburbs–who as the article notes are even more isolated than blacks in the city– are faring. In fact, depending on how the wind blows–if whites become less rather than more progressive in light of their plight–we may end up seeing suburban blacks return to the city in droves for matters of safety and comfort more than anything else.
Doc Detroit led the three county area in new housing starts,we have embark on a new day;a new poor.
Hey Lester.
The suburban question is an interesting one for sure. What makes it more interesting is when you start to examine the issue suburb by suburb. For example, no way are blacks in Southfield isolated because Southfield has become almost as black as Detroit. Harper Woods is also more than 60 percent black. Holding true to the old patterns, whites keep fleeing farther and farther out when ‘too many of them’ show up as neighbors. So the real isolation, I believe, is happening among I guess what you’d call the pioneers. Like black folks in Bloomfield Hills, etc. I don’t have facts on this about their sense of isolation, just guessing. But it wouldn’t be at all surprising.
But are they going to come back to the city in droves…? I kind of doubt it. My guess would be that those who just can’t take it in the suburbs anymore, at least in the short term, will probably leave the state. IN the long term, once – and if – Detroit turns itself around, then yeah. Maybe then they will consider returning.
Now this is interesting, too. I left a post on a earlier post with the arrest of the bank robber.
Just hearing folks around here speak, if things get back enough they are just going to leave the city. I think that will happen to those raced whites leaving in the suburbs of Detroit. Because of their privilege, it is easier for them to move back into the city.
Who is going to buy the home of the African-American family?Rather than take a loss, the African-American will hang around until they lose the house through foreclosure or take the loss and move into an apartment complex still in the suburb. But they won’t move back. They left..they don’t want to have to go back. This is what I’m thinking
I meant:
Just hearing folks around here speak, if things get bad enough they are just going to leave the city. I think that will happen to those raced whites living in the suburbs of Detroit. Because of their privilege, it is easier for them to move back into the city.
I think to understand this, you might need some understanding of the motives of the people moving out to the suburbs, and of the pioneers moving into overwhelmingly white suburbs. I assume they’re seeking better schools, lower crime, better real-estate investment value, stuff like that. Which implies that they’re not going to return to the city easily.
I also suspect that there’s a weird economic thing going on here. Rare blacks in an overwhelmingly white suburb probably see more blacks moving in as a win–the value of living in the neighborhood goes up, because they’re less isolated, their kid won’t be the only black kid in the class, etc. Whites either see this as neutral or negative, depending largely on prejudice. (Both may also expect housing prices to be affected by racial mix, but those evaluations should be the same for blacks and whites.)
Keith, isolation is measured by the probability that someone black will meet someone white with the same general characteristics in the same census tract. Southfield, according to this measure is NOT as isolated as Detroit…but blacks in Southfield (and likely Harper Woods) ARE isolated. Even though many of them have loot.
And while I think that we do have to understand motivation for suburban movement. What I am suggesting is that the things pushing black people to move into the suburbs in the first place–a desire for better services–is coming up against a reality that these suburbs are actually getting worse rather than better.
Here’s another way to think about it. Around the same time that blacks begin to accrue enough political power to take over major cities, the cities themselves undergo a shift that makes them less important nationally and globally. So they take over the cities only to realize that their victory was pyrrhic.
THe same thing is happening with blacks in suburbs. And while blacks in places like Southfield may not move back for safety concerns (because their numbers are already large enough to insulate them), blacks in other places may at the very least move to blacker suburbs.
Cities without border, calls this the tipping point. After a certain percentage of african-Americans are concentrated in a specific area, white flight occurs.
Here’s another way to think about it. Around the same time that blacks begin to accrue enough political power to take over major cities, the cities themselves undergo a shift that makes them less important nationally and globally. So they take over the cities only to realize that their victory was pyrrhic
So, I agree that African-Americans will migrate towards more affluence suburbs with a majority of African-Americans when their own suburb becomes unstable and begins to deteriorate, rather than moving back to the city.
Migrating from the city to the surburbs just to get away from is the worst mistake. What African Americans fail to realize that the property taxes for single and multi family homes in the surburbs are much higher than in the city. There are more crime in the surburbs than it is the city. It is kept on the hush hush. I am not saying dont mitgrate. Do it for right reasons.